My brief story write up is as follows:What happens when citizens are trapped over seas in a nation turned hostile? Why the change? How did they get there and how do they get out?

This is the story's Author's Forward:

This is a fun side project that started as a technical challenge to myself in February 2012. This story is fictional and inspired by a practical military planning exercise I did while at Ft Knox, and real life events. I started this story when the 'Arab Spring' was in full swing. Several brutal regimes had fallen, and things were rough but weren't terrifyingly violent. I pulled on my personal experience in the region and used what I was seeing on the news as fodder for the story's plot. I outlined and wrote most of it fairly quickly and went back to my other projects. Things exploded while I was away from this project, and given the story's Syrian setting I had some trouble finishing because it looked like 'reality' was going to reverse the plot line. Things dragged on and I decided to finish this short story with a decisive, but fictional, decision as to the outcome of Syria's Civil War. I took the planning exercise I did in training, and then combined it with the brutality I was seeing on the news. This story was the result.

I put this up for free on Smashwords. It is a dollar on Amazon. Here is a link to the Smashwords short story: The Travel Agent

I did my own cover art on this one, I hope that it looks alright, and I welcome comments and suggestions. It is no where near the quality produced by Steve but this is a free story.